Adventus

"The central doctrine of Christianity, then, is not that God is a bastard. It is, in the words of the late Dominican theologian Herbert McCabe, that if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you."--Terry Eagleton

"It is impossible for me to say in my book one word about all that music has meant in my life. How then can I hope to be understood?--Ludwig Wittgenstein

“The opposite of poverty is not wealth; the opposite of poverty is justice."--Bryan Stevenson

I should add Ms. Spiers replied to her own tweet with the assertion that "there is a non 0 possibility Jared" was lying to her; and then she says, either way, it's a disgusting assertion.

Pretty much where I come down. I don't see any evidence Trump is that Machiavellian, or that smart. He lies because he prefers to. And he held to that birther conspiracy story so long he must have come to believe it. Indeed, I think Matt Yglesias is right, and Trump just deals in bullshit as a means of testing the loyalty of those around him. Except that answer only works if Trump is in a position like being POTUS. He's only been there four months; he's been lying all his life. I also don't buy the distinction Yglesias makes between lies and bullshit; neither does the law. You can misrepresent something because you don't know yourself what is true; or you can commit fraud, where you mean for someone to buy your lie, when you know it's a lie. Either way, you're a liar: either a dissembler who isn't careful what he says, or a fraud, a deceiver, a father of lies. The distinction is important, but only on the spectrum. The more I think about it, the less I buy the "bullshit" distinction. I reserve that for tall tales.

“He now lives within himself, which is a dangerous place for Donald Trump to be,” a confidante said. ”I see him emotionally withdrawing. He’s gained weight. He doesn’t have anybody whom he trusts.”

And as the president receives conflicting advice from aides and officials, there’s concern over whether the president will even listen to the information. “No one is giving him the landscape—this is how it works, this is what you should do or not do,” a friend told Borger. “And no one has enough control—or security—to do that.”

Instead, the president hopes for a magic bullet to quell the Russia scandal.

“He’s sitting there saying, like he does with everything, ‘You guys work for me. Fix this,’” a source said.

He has no one to blame but himself, but the country is going to pay the price. We have no one to blame but ourselves, either. Don't look for that to make things change any more than it changes Trump. No one is going to fix things for him; no one is going to fix things for us. This is the problem of self-government.

“[Spicer] derided the press as ‘fake news,’ excoriated the use of anonymous sources, and defended the president’s dissemination of a story that relied on a single, unidentified source. At one point, he scolded Peter Baker, the New York Times chief White House correspondent, for shaking his head,” Politico published. “And, when he abruptly ended the briefing, he left the stage to angry shouts and continued questions from the assembled press.”

"It would be another trainwreck," one White House official told The Daily Beast, bluntly. "I'm dreading that it could even happen…though he'll probably be kept outside [the White House], it's looking like."

The event referred to is the return of Corey Lewandowski to the White House. Four separate officials are quoted in the article, all quite sure Lewandowski will not be in the White House proper. It is clearly they hope for sanity, that Lewandowski won't have an office in the West Wing. We call this kind of wishful thinking "whistling past the graveyard."

In an exemplary tweet Tuesday morning, Trump wrote that the federal and congressional Russia investigations were “a lame excuse for why the Dems lost the election.”

Hours later, the French newspaper Le Figaro published an interview with Putin, which had taken place Monday, in which the Russian leader called allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 election “fiction,” driven by “desire of those who lost the U.S. elections to improve their standing by accusing Russia of interfering.”

“[P]eople who lost the vote hate to acknowledge that they indeed lost because the person who won was closer to the people and had a better understanding of what people wanted,” he added.

I was going to say it's evidence of collusion. On second thought, it's world-class trolling. Putin is having the time of his life; unfortunately, at our expense.

Anybody else noticing Trump won't disavow the actions of violent white supremacists (his staff did that, with an anodyne tweet from the "official" Twitter feed of the office, not the person), and yet he's now being mocked by the Nordic Prime Ministers.

Following President Donald Trump’s overseas trip, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Wesley Clark argued that the president made a mistake when he did not personally affirm the foundation of the NATO alliance: an attack on one is an attack on all.

CNN host Alisyn Camerota pointed out to Kingston that Trump had a “cozier relationship with Saudi Arabia” and “chillier” relationships with France and Germany.

“I am comfortable because I don’t think it’s that chilly,” Kingston replied. “But if you look at what the EU has become, the EU is to the left of Bernie Sanders.”

Ooops....

Senior adviser to President Donald Trump Kellyanne Conway told “Fox and Friends” Tuesday that son-in-law Jared Kushner had every right and responsibility to set up a secret backchannel with Russia. In fact, “back channels like this are the regular course of business,” she said citing senior military advisors.

Said the guy who can't get healthcare reform out of the House (have they sent that bill to the Senate yet?), and who thinks he can negotiate with Germany, not the European Union, on trade. And, apparently, thinks he can start a trade war he can win.

Somehow I don't think Congress is gung-ho to cross Germany on trade, especially since they can't do it directly, and since the European Union is the second largest economy in the world; behind China.

“The short-sighted policies of the American government stand against the interests of the European Union,” [Germany's Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel] said, adding that “the West has become smaller, at least it has become weaker”.

“We Europeans must fight for more climate protection, fewer weapons and against religious (fanaticism), otherwise the Middle East and Africa will be further destabilised,” Gabriel said.

– ‘Take fate into our hands’ –

The Fake News Media works hard at disparaging & demeaning my use of social media because they don't want America to hear the real story!

“You tricked me in D.C.! You talked there about your commitment to peace, but the Israelis showed me your involvement in incitement [against Israel],” he allegedly said to [Mahmoud] Abbas, according to Israel’s Channel 2 broadcaster, which cited a U.S. official present at the meeting. It said the Palestinian delegation were shocked by the outburst.

The Israeli government blames the Palestinian leadership and Abbas’s Fatah faction for inciting violence among young Palestinians, who from September 2015 onward launched a series of violent and deadly attacks with knives, guns and vehicles in Jerusalem and the West Bank. The Palestinians say it is Israel’s military occupation of East Jerusalem and the West Bank that pushed them to violence. The violence slowed in mid-2016.

Foreign leaders are going to be playing this naif like a whipsaw.

I look forward to paying my respects to our brave men and women on this Memorial Day at Arlington National Cemetery later this morning.

Monday, May 29, 2017

Memorial Day 2017

My uncle fought in World War II; with the French Resistance, if memory serves. Or maybe not. Maybe that was a grand embellishment by the family, or my own early imagination. He never said anything about the war, or about war, to me; except once.

I went to visit him after I'd married and his kids, my age, my cousins I all but grew up with, had all married, too. So it was just my wife and I and my aunt and uncle. He picked us up at the airport. I was reading Studs Terkel's then new book "The 'Good' War." The quotes around good weren't too apparent in the cover design, and he asked me what I was reading this time (in those days I was always reading). When I showed it to him, and told him it was about World War II, he said, "I didn't think there was such a thing as a 'good' war." And he smiled; the kind of smile that always made me think he knew much more about much more than I did, or ever would.

My brother-in-law fought in Vietnam. When everybody else was going to college so as not to get drafted, he volunteered. He was Green Beret, and a Captain. He never told me anything about Vietnam, either, except that when he first arrived there it was the most beautiful country he'd ever seen. And within 10 minutes, he knew the U.S. had no business being there. But he did his job; he followed orders. He was a good soldier, and he's one of the finest men I know. He's as kind, generous, and open-minded as anyone can be.

I have a recording of the "Airborne Symphony," by Marc Blitzstein. Maybe it's the first performance, because the narrator is Orson Welles. I always think of it this time of year, because the most poignant part of the libretto is the section about bombs, and the cities destroyed by planes. It's "The Ballad of the Cities." The narrator reads a partial list of cities destroyed by bombs, but the music moves into the "Morning Poem" with the chorus singing plaintively and repeatedly: "Call the names. Call the names. Call the names."

It always seems to me the only appropriate observance of Memorial Day. Call the names.

PEACE

O Christ, Son of the living God, have mercy upon us.
Thou that sittest at the right hand of the Father, have mercy upon us.
Arise, O Christ, and help us,
And deliver us for thy Name's sake.

AMEN.

O Christ, when thou didst open thine eyes on this fair earth, the angels greeted thee as the Prince of Peace and besought us to be of good will one toward another; but thy triumph is delayed and we are weary of war.

SAVE US AND HELP US, O LORD AND MASTER.

O Christ, the very earth groans with pain as the feet of armed men march across her mangled form.

SAVE US AND HELP US, O LORD AND MASTER.

O Christ, may the Church, whom thou didst love into life, not fail thee in her witness for the things for which thou didst live and die.

TEACH US TO DO THY HOLY WILL, O LORD AND MASTER.

O Christ, the people who are called by thy Name are separated from each other in thought and life; still our tumults, take away our vain imaginings, and grant to thy people at this time the courage to pro-claim the gospel of forgiveness, and faithfully to maintain the ministry of reconciliation.

TEACH US TO DO THY HOLY WILL, O LORD AND MASTER.

O Christ, come to us in our sore need and save us; 0 God, plead thine own cause and give us help, for vain is the help of man.

SAVE US AND HELP US, O LORD AND MASTER.

O Christ of God, by thy birth in the stable, save us and help us;
By thy toil at the carpenter's bench, save us and help us;
By thy sinless life, save us and help us;
By thy cross and passion, save us and help us.

SAVE US AND HELP US, O LORD AND MASTER.

Then all shall join in the Lord's Prayer.

Our Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.

Memorial Day 2017

Dulce et Decorum Est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Sunday, May 28, 2017

"Nattering Nabobs of Negativism"

Just a reminder that the man who spoke those words resigned from office after criminal indictment, and his President resigned from office shortly thereafter. Press bashing ain't so new, and it ain't so clear:

It is my opinion that many of the leaks coming out of the White House are fabricated lies made up by the #FakeNews media.

Saturday, May 27, 2017

Wait, What?

During a half-hour news conference marking the end of the two-day G7 summit in nearby Taormina, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster and chief economic adviser Gary Cohn said Trump had succeeded in all his goals for his inaugural foreign trip ― restore U.S. leadership, build relationships with other world leaders, and show unity among the three Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

The Lion in Mid-Winter....

So Richard Dawkins is on tour, NPR informed me this morning (no, I don't remember why. A new book? "And further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh." Ecclesiastes 12:1. If you're going to slam someone, why not use the KJV?). In a relatively challenging interview, Dawkins stuck fast to his assertion that nothing motivates people to kill like religious faith.

Which explains the French Reign of Terror, hot on the heels of the French Revolution (and the rejection of all things religious. Some argue modernity was born in that Revolution, because it rejected the Church so fiercely). It explains the wars of Empire as the "Great Game" was played out in the 19th century; explains the slaughterhouse Europe was turned into in World War I; the purges of Stalin; the rise of Nazism where the churches that didn't support the Third Reich were brutalized into submission (I've met young Germans who still have an aversion to the national trappings, like flags, in Christian places of worship. They remember that history a bit differently than, apparently, Dr. Dawkins does). And of course the Cultural Revolution of Mao, the killing fields of Pol Pot; the bombings and terrorism of the '70's; the slaughter in Rwanda; all of that can be chalked up to religious faith.

What's that? It can't? Dawkins was challenged, as well, on his notion that atheists are better people than religious ones. He admitted not all religious believers are murderous fanatics (how kind of him!), but he really couldn't identify any group of avowed atheists who did good works selflessly for others. The best he could come up with is a group that defends and supports apostates and atheists in places where they are persecuted for their ideas. Nothing wrong with that, but it's hardly selfless and altruistic to help those who are just like you, is it? I saw hundreds of people organize to help victims of Hurricane Katrina fleeing New Orleans for Houston; they organized through a Baptist church, and didn't care anything about the people who needed their help, except that they needed help. I don't recall any similar atheist organizations acting that way, ever.

As Scott Simon said (this from memory, not transcript), atheists mainly preen about how much smarter they are than anyone else.

I must say Dawkins was quite anodyne about the whole affair. He was full of vague and glittering generalities, and took Simon's challenges almost demurely. Perhaps in old age he is less certain about the verities than he was before; perhaps he's more going through the motions than enthused by the attention. The role of eminence grise perhaps, is not sitting well on him. His argument smacks of an anachronism mired in 19th century controversies about the source and value of moralities. Then again, Donald Trump has become our shining example of how ignorance can't be shamed about what it doesn't know and doesn't want to know. He really isn't sui generis in that, is he?

Member countries contribute in line with an agreed cost-sharing formula, based on Gross National Income. (GNI equals GDP plus income obtained in dividends, interest etc. from other countries.)

Under that formula, the U.S. contributes 22.144 percent of the NATO budget, followed by Germany (14.65 percent), France (10.63 percent) and Britain (9.84 percent).

Thirteen allies, mostly smaller former communist countries that joined the alliance after the fall of the Soviet Union and disintegration of Yugoslavia, pay less than one percent each – Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech, Estonia, Hungary, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Portugal, Slovakia and Slovenia.

NATO is based on the principle of collective defense: an attack against one or more members is considered an attack against all. So far that has only been invoked once -- in response to the September 11 attacks.

To make the idea work, it is important for all members to make sure their armed forces are in good shape. So NATO sets an official target on how much they should spend. That currently stands at 2% of GDP.

The 2% target is described as a "guideline." There is no penalty for not meeting it.

It is up to each country to decide how much to spend and how to use the money.

So, there's defense spending per country, spent as they please; and there's money given to NATO to run the organization (personnel, office space, etc.). That's set by a formula. If Trump did jawbone NATO into ponying up more for each nation's defense, none of that money "pours in" to Brussels. If he persuaded them to pay their share per the formula, well, are they doing that already? Either way, given the way he insulted the democratic leaders of the NATO nations, why does he think he won anything?

Friday, May 26, 2017

"Do these glasses make me look cool?"

Even by the standards of any White House needing to say something that doesn't venture into "That Statements is No Longer Operative" territory (it's hell getting old, and seeing history repeat itself as farce), this is a laughable assertion:

“The president has had an incredibly successful trip overseas and the White House looks forward to continuing an aggressive messaging strategy to highlight his agenda when we return to D.C.,” said White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders.

So, what was incredibly successful? Curtsying to the King of Saudi Arabia? Placing hands on a glowing orb? Getting slapped away by Melania once, and given the fake-out the next time? The handshake with President Marcon? Pushing to the front of the room at NATO? Insulting and berating NATO and refusing to the the minimum of pledging fealty to Article 5 of the treaty (which has only been invoked once, in support of the U.S. Thanks for nothin', Europe! Suckers!!)? This was the trip so bad Andrea Mitchell said the NATO speech was "painful to watch." Andrea Mitchell, the wife of Alan Greenspan!!

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that attorneys want to monitor Trump’s Twitter account and vet the tweets before they’re sent out to a broad audience.

Hell, even CNN is laughing at you:

“Is one of those lawyers going to take up residence in the White House residence?” CNN’s Dana Bash asked Wolf Blitzer. “That is the biggest issue for the White House staff is tearing their hair out looking at these tweets.”

She noted that Trump’s tweets don’t come during typical working hours they come from the early and late hours when Trump is glued to cable news and tweeting from his phone. She also noted that it is in profound contrast to Trump’s renewed advisor Corey Lewandowsky, who operated under the “let Trump be Trump” policy.

Yahoo’s Brianna Golodryga wondered how it’s possible Trump has signed off on the new policy because it’s so contrary to his typical way of operating.

“All of this goes back on whether the president will sign off on this and I don’t see that happening,” she said. “I mean, what, are these lawyers going to come in at 2:00 a.m. for phone duty?”

Former CIA staffer turned CNN commentator Phil Mudd rattled off scandal after scandal wondering how this is decided as the solution.

“We’re 120 days in, now we’re hearing things like controlling his tweets,” Mudd said. “I hope not, actually, because I need Comedy Central, to this issue of whether we shake up the White House staff to control a president that is 70-years-old and has proven, not for a moment, that he’s maturing from day one. I don’t buy it.”

Mudd said that he didn’t buy that “a 70-year-old will have to change over 120 days.” he continued. “Give me one ounce of evidence other than he’s been quiet on the European tour and he might be quiet on Twitter. I don’t buy it.”

Those two high-ranking officials will oversee [the war room's] general strategy, but other senior communications staffers — including Cliff Sims, director of White House message strategy, and Andrew Surabian, deputy policy strategist — will manage day-to-day operations.

Surbian is one of Bannon’s closest aides and former political director of the Tea Party Express.

Sims, who previously ran the Alabama politics site Yellowhammer News, was identified by The Daily Beast as the staffer who suggested that former President Barack Obama had wiretapped Trump Tower.

Their backgrounds suggest the White House will present the “deep state” and partisan media as enemies trying to bring down the Trump presidency in an effort to deflect attention from the investigation of alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

I think you're gonna need a bigger war room. Because you can't overlook this detail:

Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner — who himself is a target of the probe — is helping Bannon and Priebus set up the war room.

“We’re talking about a guy who isn’t particularly bright or hard-working, doesn’t actually know anything, has bought his way into everything ever (with money he got from his criminal father), who is deeply insecure and obsessed with fame (you don’t buy the NYO, marry Ivanka Trump, or constantly talk about the phone calls you get from celebrities if it’s in your nature to ‘shun the spotlight’), and who is basically a shithead.”

Adding: Apparently Kushner approached the Russian ambassador to "set up a 'secure communications channel' in a 'Russian diplomatic facility,' which would allow the Trump team to have an open and private channel to the Kremlin. This is extremely clever not only because it would compromise Russian security, but because:

“the FBI closely monitors the communications of Russian officials in the United States, and maintains near-constant surveillance of its diplomatic facilities. The National Security Agency monitors the communications of Russian officials overseas.”

So, yeah, Kushner is part of the sooper-genius team that's gonna save Trump from himself. If this wasn't so serious, I'd be demanding the popcorn.

It was 50 years ago today

Well, maybe not today (I haven't googled it)*, but 25 years ago I was moved to buy a copy of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." Hey, I was twelve when the album came out. My first album was purchased 2 years later: "Abbey Road." (Still have it.)

Actually, to stop and think about how much music they produced in so short a time is to marvel. It's also to realize giants once walked among us, but no more. At least not in that field. But I digress.

25 years after that, the re-mixed and re-mastered album has been released. I downloaded it on a whim (from CD to MP3; I skipped the vinyl altogether, although that's available again. Everything old really is new again.). It is, however, a truly amazing production. I hardly have an audiophile's system (my receiver is closer to 40 than not), but it is the most amazing sound of anything I have recorded. It makes my speakers sound better, and everything else I have sound muddier.

I'll get used to it. But it's so good I'm listening to it over and over and over again. Well,while the only other being here is the cat. And he has no musical taste.

*well, now I have, looking for that picture. Rolling Stone tells me it was released in the States on June 2, 1967. A review that also gives me this: "(Ringo Starr later described it as "a bunch of songs and you stick two bits of 'Pepper' on it and it's a concept album. It worked because we said it worked.")." Which is the best description of the album possible.

“If you want to build cars in the world, then I wish you all the best. You can build cars for the United States, but for every car that comes to the USA, you will pay 35 percent tax,” he said. “I would tell BMW that if you are building a factory in Mexico and plan to sell cars to the USA, without a 35 percent tax, then you can forget that.”

Trump's comments raise two problems. One, the Germans, like the Asians, make the bulk of their cars here in America. 4.6 million cars are made in America with Asian nameplates. The largest BMW factory is not in Bavaria, Germany, but in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Mercedes-Benz produces an average of 25,000 cars a month in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. TIME has a convenient list of cars "Made in America." No American manufacturer outside of Tesla makes all its cars here. Trump says its about bringing jobs back to America; but is it?

Another German newspaper, Süddeutsche Zeitung, reported that E.U. representatives felt their U.S. counterparts did not understand that the E.U. negotiates trade agreements as a single entity, rather than on a country-to-country basis. That is, the U.S. can negotiate trade deals with the E.U. as a whole, but not individually with the separate members of the E.U.

Der Spiegel reported that Gary Cohn, the director of Trump’s National Economic Council, appeared to believe that the U.S. could negotiate different trade deals with Germany and Belgium.

Not only did Trump not get the message, but now Gary Cohn needs to be educated on the basics of international trade. Or is that the problem?

Trump goes to NATO and lectures them about paying up (as if, per Jake Tapper, NATO was a country club), barely acknowledges that NATO members actually employed Article 5 of the treaty to support the U.S. in its invasion of Afghanistan after 9/11, doesn't pledge fealty to Article 5 (as Fred Kaplan noted, the equivalent of the President stating "The State of the union is sound" in a SOTU; a throw-away phrase, in other words). And then he attacks the European Union by attacking Germany's trade deficit with the U.S. Stupid? Or venal?

Each of these aims, each of these goals lines up more or less perfectly with the strategic ambitions of the Russian Federation, which sees NATO as a bulwark of Western/US military strength hemming Russia in behind borderlands it sees as within its proper sphere of influence and with the EU, representing a liberal internationalist order which it has set itself against. A lot of this thinking comes from the Bannonite/”nationalist” part of the Trump crew, though Trump has espoused elements of this vision for years. That group, in turn has deep ties to various European rightist parties which share this anti-NATO, anti-EU, politically illiberal stance. Many or most are funded by Russia. Whether or not this is being done on Putin’s behalf, it clearly lines up within Putin’s and Russia’s aims. Putin wants a fragmented Europe; Trump does too.

The response to James Lindsay is Charlie Pierce's: "It's not about race, because it's never about race." It's worth noting Lindsay describes himself (on Twitter) as "A thinker, not a philosopher," and his banner shows a partial skull and the legend "Life in the Light of Death." Which tells me all I need to know about his views on religion (blinkered, blinded, and severely reduced to a daube glace caricature of American Christianity).

The response to Peter Boghossian is that he needs to read more Wittgenstein; and mathematicians who think you are daft to critique mathematics (at all? on some grounds?) are not very good thinkers themselves. Notably, there are only two responses to Lindsay's tweet, and of the eight to Boghossian's, four are from Lindsay, two from the author himself.

Which is to say, making a great stir in the world they are not. Which may explain their "conceptual penis hoax" better than they meant to. Yes, these are the authors of the "conceptual penis" hoax. Seems the hoax is actually on them.

I understand from Slate that Boghossian and Lindsay are part of the "New Atheist" movement, which Slate notes is "an overwhelmingly male scene." Yes, yes it is, and its godfather is Richard Dawkins, of whom Slate notes:

“It isn't only in America that you'll find salaried academics paid to regale students with gems like, 'The penis is shaping up to be the central metaphor of the gender crisis of the Nineties,’” prominent New Atheist Richard Dawkins warned back in the mid-1990s, when he was best known as a zoologist. “Look out for new courses with names like 'Gender Studies.’”

Yeah, leopards never change their spots, do they? James Lindsay is the author of one of the more unfortunately titled books in print (alongside Daniel Dennett's Consciousness Explained, which failed if only because nobody has stopped trying to explain consciousness since he published): Everybody is Wrong About God. Frankly, it's a title I can imagine more than a few Christian using, but it's really more akin to The Whole World is Wrong Except Me! Nice work if you can get it, in other words; and again, Mr. Lindsay has yet to cause the world to shut down its mosques, temples, sanctuaries, and other places of worship and be guided by his singular light.

So there's that.

I was going to follow the link to the Inside Higher Education article about the publication of the "conceptual penis" article, but honestly, life's too short and who cares anyway? This is an example of two people seeking fame and glory for their vanity. Boghossian hasn't authored a philosophical work equivalent to that of Derrida or Foucault (and again I point out the philosophical underpinning of fields like "gender studies" is on the Continent, not in Anglo-American schools of philosophy, which is why they produce so much friction in the "wrong" context. Yes, it has to do with men being dicks, but it also has to do with fundamental disagreements about how the world is understood. Boghossian thinks his insight about mathematics is clever; most Continental philosophers wouldn't even pay attention to it. It's of no meaning at all to them.), or more obscurely Levinas. Perhaps my standards for "obscure" are a bit off, of course, since the Unemployed Philosophers Guild lodges its finger puppets of Derrida and Foucault in the "Most Obscure" section (with the Foucault puppet asking "Who am I?" Sadly, I not only know, I have both puppets, along with the Kierkegaard one.) But Boghossian isn't as known as the translators of Derrida, so he has to get his words to fork lightning somehow, lest he go gentle into that good night.

But from this effort, one can not only overlook his hoax as something not even worth exposing, but one can urge him, in the line of musicians telling a wannabe just how far from fame he is: "Don't quit your day job."

Rage, rage against the dying of the light; but do it less publicly, okay? The rest of us have lives you clearly don't understand a thing about. And no, they aren't the measure of our public intellectuals; just a marker as to how paltry our public discourse is.

In Our Yellow Submarine*

Trump goes to Saudi Arabia, and can't heap enough praise on the monarchy there. His Commerce Secretary marveled at the lack of protests, even though it was pointed out to him that protests are a criminal act in Saudi Arabia. The entire purpose of the First Amendment was to insure political office holders never became kings, because you don't diss the King. The Secretary didn't care, he still liked the "order" of the place.

“When we were in Saudi Arabia… the president was very clear in saying that America’s job is not to lecture the world,” she pointed out. “And yet here, in this setting, President Trump really scolded the member nations that have not paid the proportion that they have agreed to.”

Notably, Trump made no effort to reinforce America's Article 5 obligations under the NATO treaty. Instead, he scolded NATO members he thinks aren't paying their fair share (he's still wrong about that).

It's not Trump's job to lecture autocrats, whom he admires. It is his job to disdain democrats, maybe because he can't tell the difference between the small "d" and the large one. Well, that and dismantling NATO is a dream of Vladimir Putin. Coincidence? No, probably not.

Trump does not mention Article 5 in his speech. Wow. Vague mention of commitments in passing. Shocking and damaging.

Hide the wound

I remember "Mammy" images from my childhood. Objects like cookie jars, salt and pepper shakers, etc. I was a little kid, I didn't think much of them, any more than I considered "Aunt Jemima" a clearly racist caricature.

Sometime in the '80's, I took a weekend trip with friends to New Orleans. Stayed in the French Quarter in a B&B with real French doors (the narrow ones, each about 12" wide, the whole opening no bigger than a standard door opening), listened to jazz in the Preservation Hall, ate beignets at Cafe Du Monde, the whole spiel. And I came across a lot of "Mammy" figures that I hadn't seen since my childhood. I was really convinced they'd been swept away sometime in the '70's, but there they were, larger than life and twice as ugly.

I put it down to the South changing far more slowly than I had wanted to realize. The "n-word" finally was expunged from public discourse, but "Mammy" took a bit longer to go away. I remember it on wall hangings (objects meant to be displayed), towels, even aprons, if memory serves. And lots and lots of objects, though I don't remember ever seeing a cookie jar.

And now they're back, selling for four figures on eBay and other web outlets. They are extremely racist, no less so than cartoons of blacks with balloon lips and bulging white eyes. But apparently the generation buying them doesn't realize that. They couldn't have nostalgia for them, so it must be just the novelty, and the rarity. We are less overtly racist than before, but that doesn't make us any less racist than before.

I have thought of buying something on that New Orleans trip 3 decades ago, just for old time's sake, just for the nostalgia factor. I knew better, even then. I was repulsed by the items, and it didn't make it better to see them in more than one store. Repulsed and attracted, because they were a childhood memory, because I thought they'd been lost forever. But being a childhood memory, I knew what they were, and I knew why I was repulsed by them, even as they stirred memories of more innocent, or really naive, times.

We carry that naïveté with us, still, as a shield, as a sword, as a defense against being called "racist." But just as ignorance of the law is no defense, being clueless is no excuse.

I do despair of ever healing this hidden wound, as long as we insist on keeping it hidden.

Wednesday, May 24, 2017

"We are smart. We are strong."

“We have a lot of firepower over there. We have two submarines, the best in the world,” Trump bragged to [Philippines President Rodrigo] Duterte, according to reports by the New York Times and the Intercept. “We have two nuclear submarines, not that we want to use them at all.”

I'm only surprised he didn't give their locations; but he probably doesn't understand latitude and longitude.

Tuesday, May 23, 2017

Still Unclear About The Concept

In this case, probably not....

“This morning’s hearings back up what we’ve been saying all along: that despite a year of investigation, there is still no evidence of any Russia Trump campaign collusion, that the President never jeopardized intelligence sources or sharing, and that even Obama’s CIA Director believes the leaks of classified information are ‘appalling’ and the culprits must be ‘tracked down,’” the statement read. That statement was attributable to an unnamed “White House spokesman.”

So when the President says it, it's classified; unless the President says it and declassifies it by saying it to people who shouldn't hear classified information. When somebody says it to the press anonymously it's a criminal act because it's releasing classified information (which is classified because the President said it), unless the anonymous person is not leaking "classified information."

And when is it not classified information? Sorry, that's classified. The President said so.

As a young analyst, I wouldn’t have had direct interaction with Andropov. But I have studied Russian intelligence activities over the years and I’ve seen it manifest in many different of our counterintelligence cases and how they have been able to get people, including inside the CIA, to become treasonous. And frequently, individuals who go along a treasonous path do not even realize they’re along that path until it gets to be a bit too late. And that’s why, again, my radar goes up early when I see certain things that I know what the Russians are trying to do, and I don’t know whether or not the targets of their efforts are as mindful of the Russian intentions as they need to be.

“Such intelligence, classified intelligence is not shared with visiting foreign ministers or local ambassadors, it’s shared through intelligence channels because it needs to be handled the right way and needs to make sure it’s not exposed,” he said. “He didn’t do that, again if the press charges are accurate.”

“Secondly,” Brennan continued, “before sharing any classified intelligence with foreign partners, it needs to go back to the originating agency to make sure that the language in it is not—even just providing the substance—going to reveal sources or methods and compromise the future collection capability. It appears as though, at least from the press reports, that neither did it go in the proper channels nor did the originating agency have the opportunity to clear language for it. That is a problem.”

But, you know, the real problem is anonymous leaks from the White House; well, SOME anonymous leaks!

As a skeptic myself, I am cautious about the constellation of cognitive biases to which our evolved brains are perpetually susceptible, including motivated reasoning, confirmation bias, disconfirmation bias, overconfidence and belief perseverance. That is partly why, as a general rule, if one wants to criticize a topic X, one should at the very least know enough about X to convince true experts in the relevant field that one is competent about X. This gets at what Brian Caplan calls the “ideological Turing test.” If you can’t pass this test, there’s a good chance you don’t know enough about the topic to offer a serious, one might even say cogent, critique.

But here's the funny part: it's part of an article about the "Conceptual Penis" hoax, and that hoax apparently caught a number of "luminaries":

As the historian Angus Johnston put it on Twitter, “If skepticism means anything it means skepticism about the things you WANT to be true. It’s easy to be a skeptic about others’ views.” The quick, almost reflexive reposting of this “hoax” by people like Dave Rubin, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Steven Pinker, Christina Hoff Sommers and Melissa Chen reveals a marked lack of critical thinking about what exactly this exercise in attempted bullying proves.

The links to Twitter there are mine. Nothing says "high quality peer-reviewed" quite like Twitter, eh? Such is the state of public intellectuals in America, where people gleefully engage in mocking postmodern theories and anything else they don't begin to understand. Trump is a useful metaphor here: after all, if he doesn't understand it, it must not be important, right? Well, maybe not. As for the three horseman of the dumbocalypse (credit me, please!), what they understand about Continental philosophy (the roots of postmodern theory) would fill a thimble, yet that makes them experts on the topic. Their praise of this hoax indicates only that they, themselves, were hoaxed.

The story here, if you haven't heard, is that Peter Boghossian and James Lindsay wrote an article meant to parody gender studies, then found a journal to publish it. Far from being a "high-quality peer reviewed" journal, as Pinker claims (and the authors themselves claim), they got published in a vanity publication, one where the authors pay to be published. The authors claim they didn't pay to get their article published, but that doesn't raise the standards of the journal to something reputable or "peer-reviewed." And then, to really twist the knife:

If anything, the hoax reveals not the ideological dogmas of gender studies but the motivating prejudices of the authors and their mostly white, mostly male supporters against social justice — a term that simply refers to the realization of fairness and just relations among citizens of a society.

Which description certainly applies to Dawkins, Harris, and Pinker.

The fact is, reasoning is hard, and the basis of reasoning, of logical analysis, of critical thought (and not just "skepticism") is discerning what is true from what you want to be true. Even religious belief is subject to skepticism, as the believer tries to divine what is from the deity v. what is from his/her own heart. As the God of Abraham notably puts it to Jeremiah:

The heart is devious above all else;
it is perverse--
who can understand it?
I the LORD test the mind
and search the heart,
to give to all according to their ways,
according to the fruit of their doings.

Jeremiah 17:9-10

The "test" there is not reasonableness, but outcome. It is a concept separate from critique, but not alien to it. It relates to the question of certainty, of knowing what is right. It is a problem we've known about since the "Bronze Age," as so many children on the internet like to call the age of the Hebrew Scriptures (and of Plato and Aristotle, who somehow escape condemnation for that), and yet we're still re-inventing that wheel and re-discovering that fire. Or at least still discovering it's validity in what passes for intellectual discourse in social media. Who needs to even pay for an article to be published when you can put your opinion on Twitter for free?

Some of these "public intellectuals" just prove the old adage that you can't shame a whore.

Instead, The Swerve’s primary achievement is to flatter like-minded readers with a tall tale of enlightened modern values triumphing over a benighted pre-modern past. It’s no accident, I think, that The Swerve’s imagined Middle Ages bears a strong resemblance to America’s present era of superstitious know-nothing-ism. Or that Lucretius’s secular, principled-pleasure-minded values bear an equally strong resemblance to the values of Greenblatt’s cultural peers — including, presumably, the jurors who awarded him two national literary prizes. The Swerve presents itself as a work of literary history. But really it is a salvo in the culture wars; an effort to lend an aura of historical inevitability to the idea that religious faith has no place in a modern democratic society.

The Swerve is the book under review. The thesis of the book rests on a badly imagined version of the so-called "Middle Ages," that period between the fall of Rome and the Renaissance (and named by the Renaissance, which also got to name itself. How fortunate!). It's the last sentence that's the key: the "effort to lend an aura of historical inevitability to the idea that religious faith has no place in a modern democratic society." Which always rests on ignorance and know-nothing-ism, which is not a condition limited to those you disagree with. Whenever you set your sights on your preferred conclusion and then go seeking evidence to support it, you're going to find such evidence, whether it's there or not. Again, the metaphor of Donald Trump and most fact-finding by politicians is instructive.

We can expect better of our public intellectuals, even if we can't often get it.

"I have just chaired a meeting of the Government's emergency committee Cobra where we discussed the details of and the response to the appalling events in Manchester last night.

"Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and the families and friends of all those affected.

"It is now beyond doubt that the people of Manchester and of this country have fallen victim to a callous terrorist attack, an attack that targeted some of the youngest people in our society with cold calculation.

"This was among the worst terrorist incidents we have ever experienced in the United Kingdom and although it is not the first time Manchester has suffered in this way it is the worst attack the city has experienced and the worse ever to hit the north of England.

“The police and security services are working at speed to establish the complete picture but I want to tell you what I can at this stage.

“At 10.33pm last night the police were called to reports of an explosion at Manchester arena in Manchester city centre near Victoria train station.

“We now know that a single terrorist detonated his improvised explosive device near one of the exits of the venue, deliberately choosing the time and place to cause maximum carnage and to kill and injure indiscriminately.

“The explosion coincided with the conclusion of a pop concert which was attended by many young families and groups of children.

“All acts of terrorism are cowardly attacks on innocent people but this attack stands out for its appalling, sickening cowardice, deliberately targeting innocent, defenceless children and young people who should have been enjoying one of the most memorable nights of their lives.

“As things stand I can tell you that in addition to the attacker 22 people have died and 59 people have been injured.

“Those who were injured are being treated in eight different hospitals across Greater Manchester, many are being treated for life threatening conditions and we know that among those killed and injured were many children and young people.

“We struggle to comprehend the warped and twisted mind that sees a room packed with young children not as a scene to cherish but as an opportunity for carnage.

“But we can continue to resolve to thwart such attacks in future, to take on and defeat the ideology that often fuels this violence and if there turn out to be others responsible for this attack to seek them out and bring them to justice.

“The police and security services believe that the attack was carried out by one man but they now need to know whether he was acting alone or as part of a wider group.

“It will take some time to establish these facts and the investigation will continue.

“The police and security services will be given all the resources they need to complete that task.

“The police and security services believe they know the identity of the perpetrator but at this stage of their investigations we cannot confirm his name.

“I extend my deepest condolences to those so terribly injured in this terrorist attack and to the many killed and the families – so many families of the victims,” he said, describing his emotions on this “horrible morning of death”.

“We stand in absolute solidarity with the people of the United Kingdom,” Trump said. “So many young beautiful, innocent people living and enjoying their lives murdered by evil losers in life.

“I won’t call them monsters because they would like that term. They would think that’s a great name. I will call them, from now on, losers, because that’s what they are. They are losers. And we will have more of them. But they are losers, just remember that.

“Our society can have no tolerance for this continuation of bloodshed, we cannot stand a moment longer for the slaughter of innocent people. And in today’s attack it was mostly innocent children. The terrorists and extremists and those who give them aid and comfort must be driven out from our society for ever.

“This wicked ideology must be obliterated – and I mean completely obliterated – and the innocent life must be protected. All civilised nations must join together to protect human life and the sacred right our citizens to live in safety and in peace.”

About which I would merely refer you to the comments of Jason Easley. Two people who understand the gravity of the problem, and one person who wants to throw kerosene on the fire. ISIS's man on our side, in other words.

Two Corinthians walk into a bar....

Gov. Greg Abbott has signed into law legislation shielding pastors' sermons from government subpoena power.....Authored by state Sen. Joan Huffman, R-Houston, SB 24 says a government cannot "compel the production or disclosure of a written copy or audio or video recording of a sermon delivered by a religious leader during religious worship ... or compel the religious leader to testify regarding the sermon." It went into effect immediately when it was formally signed by Abbott on Friday in Austin.

Which is why it was passed into law and became effective immediately, rather than in September, as most Texas laws do. But this is the part that sets the place where Abbott held his ceremony (the actual bill was signed Friday) on Saturday:

“Texas law now will be your strength and your sword and your shield," Abbott said, invoking Bible verse as he addressed the 11 a.m. service at Grace Church. "You will be shielded by any effort by any other government official in any other part of the state of Texas from having subpoenas to try to pry into what you’re doing here in your churches."

That language puts Abbott firmly in the Donald Trump Christian Camp. It's no accident Abbott chose a "community church" for his spectacle, or that they agreed to it, or that he got away with language that a good Southern Baptist preacher would tell him was idolatrous. When you take Biblical sounding phrases and replace anything, but especially the law, with "God," you have created an idol of the law (or whatever you substitute). The Lovely Wife was listening to the preacher of the biggest Baptist Church in town on Sunday morning, as she flipped channels. He preached on Moses and the need to be centered on God, not on what you want (Moses was quite reluctant to lead Israel out of Egypt, at least at first). She then caught Joel Osteen, whose message was all about how interested God was in you and what you wanted.

A stark contrast, in other words, between a preacher of Scriptures, and a preacher of what-you-want-to-hear. I may have my disagreements with the Baptists, but I disagree more basically and profoundly with non-denominational churches that preach a sort of American creed of the supremacy of what they want.

A subpoena of a sermon is not, of course, prying "into what your doing here in your churches." Sermons are public speeches. Many of the pastors affected by the subpoena effort in Houston were: a) parties to the lawsuit, and b) broadcast their sermons as far and wide as possible. Asking for a transcript is not exactly interfering with your right to worship. But now Texas law will protect those churches, because apparently God can't be bothered with such things.

*the then Mayor of Houston didn't want the sermons subjected to subpoena; she knew the political shitstorm it would stir. Unfortunately, the City was represented by outside counsel in the suit, and they were politically tone-deaf. Note, also, this law only applies to state governments, and the next time government at any level in Texas wants to subpoena sermons, hell will be freezing over. Private parties, of course, can subpoena away in the context of a lawsuit. But who ever sues churches?

Now you have to realize the Texas Constitution doesn't give power to any one person. The Governor and the Lt. Gov. are elected separately, and while the latter presides in the Texas Senate and the former is the only person who can call special sessions and decide precisely what the special session will try to pass (and once passed, the session is over; no hanging about passing any other laws not put on the agenda by the Guv.), that's about as powerful as the offices are. It's largely a matter of political clout as to how much you can do in either position. Bob Bullock was a legendary Texas pol who knew where ALL the bodies were buried in Texas, and he ran the state as Lt. Guv. He even got a Texas history museum named after him in Austin. Former Gov. Dolph Briscoe has his name attached to a museum on UT campus in Austin, but that's because he was rich and left a lot of money for it. Everybody still remembers the long shadow Bullock cast; Briscoe is a phantom of some very long memories (like your host's).

So Dan Patrick was determined to "North Carolina" Texas. Except Texas business interests didn't want to see that happen, and Joe Strauss, Speaker of the Texas House, listens to the bidness men. Patrick's bill passed the Senate, but never had a prayer in the House.

Texas has one of the shortest legislative sessions in the country: six months every two years. Anything outside of that is a "special session," called by the governor, limited to what the governor puts on the agenda. The Governor is not anxious to put Patrick's "bathroom bill" on the agenda; but he's not anxious to cross the crazies Patrick and the Texas Senate represent. Strauss doesn't care; he's not letting Texas become the next North Carolina. Patrick decide to flex his muscles and demand that bill (and a few others) get to the House floor, or he wouldn't pass the state budget, the only law the Lege has to pass in regular session (or come back immediately in special session).

Texas legislators don't get paid well to come to Austin for six months, and they are anxious to leave when the whirlwind is over. But the law is the law, and a budget must be passed, before the end of the month, or in the summer.

And then this morning I learn that a "compromise" has shown up in the House, an amendment to another bill, that would limit the "bathroom bill" to public and charter schools. K-12, so as not to bother the NCAA (of course). The original bill applied only to public buildings, so you're local restaurants public bathrooms would not have been affected. But if Caitlyn Jenner were to visit your local Texas courthouse or city hall, she'd have been directed to the men's room; presumably. If she was recognized (the only reason I mention her); and if there was a policeman ready and willing to do his/her duty under the law. Fat chance, IOW. Still, that risk could be removed if this amendment makes it to the Senate and the Senate decides half a loaf is better than a special session.

Of course, the only people even Patrick's original bill would apply to was students in public schools. There was a question of whether publicly owned football stadiums would be covered, and I never envisioned police standing before the bathrooms checking birth certificates and...well, what? The premise of the bill was to enforce privacy, right? So in the name of privacy we make you drop drawers and show a piece of paper besides? Yeah, right.

The first excuse was predators: men in women's clothes looking to rape our innocent white young girls. That worked in Houston, but it won't work again, and it's pretty much gone as an argument. Privacy was next, but bathrooms are supposed to be private, and unless transgendered women are gonna belly up to the urinal, whose to know, unless we remove the doors on stalls in the name of privacy? So we're down to the point of this bill all along, and the only population it could ever apply to: public school students.

The schools know who you are, and what it says on your birth certificate, and the schools alone can police their bathrooms in the ways no other institution can. Even the broadest reach of Patrick's fevered dreams was only ever going to come down to public school students. Apparently public school isn't hard enough, we have to make it tougher.

The last-minute vote amended a Senate bill focusing on school districts' emergency plans and added language requiring K-12 schools provide single-stall restrooms and other public areas to a student "who does not wish" to use facilities designated by "biological sex."

So they don't have to pee where they want to pee, but they don't have to pee with other people, either. Hey, it's compromise, right?

The result is the same: Dammit, we gotta discriminate against SOMEBODY! What's the point of having a legislative session in Donald Trump's first term if we don't do that!

And while we're talking about schools, Patrick still insists on a sop to hard-working rich people:

HB 21 now includes a provision the House hates and Patrick wants: state subsidies for parents who want to send their children with disabilities to private schools or need money for services to educate them at home.

The amount involved is about $8000. That won't pay tuition at many private schools, if you can get in (most around here have waiting lists. Well, the better ones.). And those aren't even the schools targeted. Fewer and more expensive and more exclusive are the private schools that take children with disabilities. Such schools limit enrollment, as all private schools do. So if you think you can take that voucher and put your kid in a private school that will deal better with her needs, I'm afraid that won't happen. But if you have the money for that school, $8000 is nice refund on the costs you're paying. As I say, this won't help people who can't afford those schools; it will only help the people who can.

The flip side of this is that Texas tried something like this years ago, allowing people to take the money and spend it on private schooling of almost any description. A huge number of fly-by-night schools opened, took the money, and ran. Imagine how much worse that would be for poor parents with children who need help and get the minimum Texas will pay for and the federal government will provide; and then they go to a private school that has no interest beyond getting that voucher coupon cashed. We've seen this movie, we know how it turns out; and now we're gonna sit through it again.

And for those kids who can't escape the public schools, we'll make sure to shame them as much as possible about where they go to relieve themselves. Why should life be easy for kids whose parents aren't rich, right?